Otherside
by Penguinator27
Summary: About Sirius and when he gets the newspaper with ScabbersPettigrewWormtail in it, and what he decides to do. I know 'otherside' is spelled oddly. PLEASE REVIEW!


A/N- This is a fic, about my second-favorite character Sirius Black. This is not completely a songfic, but sort of. I do know that "Otherside" is spelled wrong and, yes, it's supposed to look like that because that's the way the Red Hot Chili Peppers spelled it in the title of their song. I've been wanting to write this story for a long time, since the idea has been in my head for over a year now. Enjoy. I hope.  
  
Disclaimer- Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, James, Lily, and Harry Potter, Dumbledore, Remus Lupin-these are all characters that don't belong to me. but to J.K. Rowling (literary genius). Also, the song, "Otherside," belongs to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and comes of their album, "Californication."  
  
1  
  
2  
  
3 The Otherside  
  
"I heard your voice through a photograph  
  
I thought it up it brought up the past  
  
Once you know you can never go back  
  
3.1.1 I've got to take it on the otherside"  
  
  
  
Sirius Black lie on a thin, uncomfortable cot that sat in his cell in the wizard prison, Azkaban. He stared up at his stone ceiling, counting the cracks-a favorite pastime of his, for the past twelve years. It kept his mind off of other things. More often than counting the cracks in the ceiling, though, Sirius lie face-down on his cot with his eyes closed, just listening to the sound of the North Sea. He couldn't very well look at it; his, "window," was only three inches wide, and two inches tall, since he resided in a high security cell.  
  
One day, on a spring afternoon, while Sirius just happened to be eating his bland lunch-a portion of gruel he had eaten three times every day for the last twelve years-he heard a human voice coming near his cell. This voice, however, was that of a sane man, unlike the new prisoners brought in once every month. Sirus recognized this voice as the one that belonged to the current Minister of Magic. Sirius couldn't recall his name right away.  
  
He rushed to his cell door, where an opening a little larger than his, "window," allowed him to see the Minister about to pass his cell.  
  
"Minister," he called in a hoarse voice. The minister-Cornelius Fudge, Sirius remembered-looked at the prisoner's gaunt face staring at him thought his cell door.  
  
"Sirius Black, aren't you?" speaking to Sirius as if he were some child not yet capable of intelligent conversation.  
  
"Yes, Minister."  
  
Minister Fudge nodded in recognition.  
  
"Minister," started Sirius, very careful to be polite after he saw something that caught his interest clutched in his right hand, "if you're done with you news paper, may I have it?"  
  
A stare of astonishment was all the response he received from the minister at first. He then decided to offer further explanation.  
  
"I rather miss doing the crossword puzzles."  
  
"Yes.." the minister said, still looking shocked. He slowly slipped the newspaper through the bars of the window of Sirius Black's cell door.  
  
Sirius took the paper from the minister. "Thank you, Minister. Good day." With that, Sirius returned to his cot and opened the paper. This simple action made him feel as if he were a free man, sitting in his kitchen again, his pet imp chattering inaudibly in her cage, himself drinking his coffee and shaking the news paper..  
  
**************************************************************************** *  
  
3.2 I Heard Your Voice Through A Photograph  
  
On the front page, a happy-looking family, the Weasleys-Sirius remembered the father, Author Weasley's brother Bilius who was either a year ahead or behind him at Hogwarts. He couldn't remember such small things anymore.  
  
Sirius read the caption below the picture of the family, waving happily under the Egyptian sun.  
  
"All at Hogwarts.." Sirius muttered, his own school-day memories coming back for a fleeting moment. "A son. beginning his third year. Harry's year. all Weasleys are in Gryffindor. Harry is there," Sirius muttered to no one at all, not even so much himself, in a tone of lunacy.  
  
Glancing from the caption, the picture, so that his could see the boy that perhaps was Harry's friend, he spotted something on the boy's shoulder.  
  
"Damn rats. I guess they're back in style."  
  
Sirius once new a psudo-rat. He looked at the rat in the picture, comparing it to the rat he new in the past, mentally. They resembled each other uncannily. Suddenly, realization washed over Sirius like the warm sun that shone on the rat in the picture.  
  
"Oh my.." Sirius uttered, " That son of a-"  
  
"Good day, Black," Minister Fudge called as he walked past Sirius' cell, nonchalantly glancing through the bars to see if the convict was really reading.  
  
"You, too, Minister."  
  
Now gazing at his newspaper again in utter disbelief, he began to remember.  
  
"Yes, that would defiantly fool them, Sirius. If I were the secret keeper!"  
  
"I'm scared, a little. But I swear that I'm up to this-you can trust me, James."  
  
"Good night, James."  
  
In anger not fit for verbal expression, Sirius transformed into his grim- like form. He threw back his black, shaggy head, and howled-twelve years of bottled up fury, grief, and self-hatred coming out in eerie, sharp chords that drifted out of the prison and out into the icy air of the North Sea.  
  
3.3 I Thought It Up It Brought Up the Past  
  
When physical darkness fell upon the hellish prison, Azkaban, Sirius lie quietly on his cot, shivering, thinking about what this particular rat in question had done about twelve years earlier.  
  
Peter Pettigrew, the rat, was once a friend. Mind, a very annoying, and often unwanted presence. Anyhow, to his two real friends-James, and Remus- he was someone who needed looking out for. Leave it to the two kindest souls in the world to stick up for a rat, Sirius half laughed to himself.  
  
The reason Sirius really came to hate Peter was the betrayal of his best friend, James Potter. Sirius was supposed to be the one keeping secret the hiding place of James, his wife Lily, and their son-his own godson-Harry, only a year old. Sirius felt that it was too predictable for him to be the Secret Keeper, and, because he suspected Remus to be a spy at the time, he thought that Peter should assume the position at the last minute, so that no one, not even the person who suggested the spell they were using would know. Only the Potters, himself, and Peter.  
  
Needless, to say, Sirius' suspicions were wrong; Remus was not the spy. Of coarse, he only found this out after he found his best friends dead, their house destroyed. It was then that he went after the real spy-Peter-for revenge. This was when Peter showed he had brains after all.  
  
On a street full of Muggles in London, he found Peter walking as if it were any normal day, and he were just out for a pleasant stroll. Sirius pointed out his wrong doings of the previous night, when Peter pulled an amazing stunt.  
  
"Lily and James, how could you!" he yelled at Sirius, repeating everything Sirius had just said to him, catching the look of many curious Muggles. He then drew his wand, quicker than Sirius could, blew up the street with some incantation Sirius had never heard, hit him with a strong laughing charm, severed one of his fingers from his hand with yet another charm, transformed into a rat, and ran away.  
  
The whole situation looked quite the opposite of what it was: Sirius laughing, his wand drawn; a whole street blown up; Peter's finger lying in front of him.  
  
The human mind needs only one shred of doubt for it to jump from a firm believer of something, to one that jumps to a wrong conclusion - in this case, there were so many things on this scene that anyone could have guessed what happened. That was the problem, though. It wasn't what it seemed.  
  
So Sirius was sent to a high security prison cell in Azkaban for life without a trial. That was where he had been for the last twelve years, paying for a crime he didn't commit. The real criminal, though was apparently living happily with a wizarding family who didn't know what he was, or what he was capable of doing.  
  
3.4 Once You Know, You Can Never Go Back  
  
Now that Sirius had put all the pieces of the puzzle together, something dawned on him: he had been going to Hogwarts with this boy for the past three years, where he could possibly do harm to Harry-the boy Sirius pledged to take care of in case of the present situation.  
  
"HE'S AT HOGWARTS!" Sirius shouted-just to get the other prisoners to jump- thinking of Peter.  
  
He knew what he had to do: find the rat, and kill it-commit the crime he was imprisoned for-to ensure Harry's safety. He also knew how to get out. In his dog-form, he could get out unnoticed. He would then have to swim across the North Sea-he dreaded this particular obstacle-- and get to England, head up to Hogwarts, find the rat, and kill him. It seemed so simple.  
  
That night, Sirius drifted off to sleep easily, knowing that it would be his last night in Azkaban.  
  
Much to the curiosity of the dementors, however, he mumbled all night:  
  
"He's at Hogwarts. Hogwarts." 


End file.
